It pains me to see how many people have begun blindly following sims like it's the bible.. Tell me, did you guys follow the sims in Dragon Soul when it told you MM was the top ST spec ? I bet none of you were and all of you were playing SV like the rest of us. Sims give you an idea of theoretical potential. It is not written in stone..

It only showed better on Simulationcraft, which has been notoriously known to be a steaming pile of garbage for hunters. Femaledwarf simulated the hunter specs far better, and had Surv ahead of the other two in DS. Even NOW, it's a steaming pile of garbage. Go and take a look at the SV profile for example, see how many errors you can spot because no good hunters are helping them with BiS lists, etc...
Just for emphasis, I'll go ahead and write it up:
509 tier over 516 heroic elite.
Sunwrought (Tsulong) chest over tier.
Random-drop belt over sha belt.
Relic of Xuen over bottle of infinite stars.
Hands are enchanted with haste.
Taoren is reforged out of mastery into crit instead of out of haste (and alot of other idiotic reforges that prioritizes haste over mastery).
I will also save you the trouble and tell you that BM is much the same (except they got the tier pieces and shoulders right this time... But used the 509 jagged hornet bracers which are only aviable through the BMAH if incredibly lucky as part of the BiS setup. Still using wrong belt, trinket, stat priority, etc).

No hunter worth anything listens to that site - except maybe Devai, because he seems intent on claiming the relic > the bottle... For whatever reason he thinks it's better (I have literally had 8 people ask me that question because of him and his stream <___<)
Use FD to simulate the average dps you'll do and you get a much clearer picture. And it's usually ten times more accurate than SC.

And to the people speaking against ToTH rofl just listen to yourselves and you'll realize how stupid you sound. Atleast come up with decent arguments.. "Oh well this talent gives me SO many arcane shots that I don't even have time to use them all" Yea.. too many arcane shots.. definitely a bad thing eh ? morons..

This is a completly valid concern in a singletarget fight. With a base focus regen of 6 per second (due to haste+viper venow), 3 non-cost arcane shots are atleast 18 focus gained. Explo shot has a 6 sec cd so it is not a reliable dump, neither is glaive toss, BA or anything else you have - the only "reliable dump" apart from arcane shot, is multishot. The main issue here isn't exactly overcapping focus, but rather, that with a 30% chance to proc from any given attack, if triggered at high focus, the chances of overwriting TOTH procs becomes VERY likely.
This is not in itself an issue, because as long as you're always firing the highest-damaging shot on cooldown, you're not losing dps (no matter how much focus you lose out on). Worst case scenario, you have to recast serpent sting, but TOTH can proc at "bad" times, fervor is 100% in your control. It is however an issue when it doesn't proc when you "need" it.
Been playing around with Fervor lately because of general oppinion, and while I still prefer TOTH on heavy-multishot fights as windlord and sha of fear, I can see the reasoning behind fervor for "burst", although there's less of it than there is with TOTH.

It's just based on playstyle.. If you're a reactive player, ToTH is slightly better. If you are a non-reactive player who likes to plan things out then fervor might be better for you. Regardless, they are both roughly equal, with the potential gain of ToTH being much higher due to 'good' rng. But even with bad rng it isn't behind much.

This is not true. Whether you are reactive or non-reactive, fervor still provides a bigger DPS boost.
Here's a log with me and another Surv hunter on garalon:http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=9351&e=9678
He's using TOTH, I'm using fervor. I missed one application as I start with the pheromones and thus focus more on positioning at the start so the rest of our raid can get to dps properly, instead of blowing all CD's and topping the deeps. With 10 applications of Fervor, I'd get 1K focus. It can also be argued I misssed another as I only got to use one readiness in this fight (5 min 26 sec kill), as my readiness was not used till 30 seconds in (after I'd given off my pheromones).
So 1100 focus.
Kayman gained 19 thrill of the hunts, alot of them overlapping, giving him 1140 focus without any stacks wasted if all used. So as you can see, the amount of focus gained from both skills are laughably close. The main difference here is the fact that your PET gains 100 energy per fervor, too, which leads to far more specials, and more DPS. You won't get more out of TOTH with "good" rng than you will with fervor, fervor is simply a more skill-based talent (have to use it on CD and bleed your focus before using it in order to take full advantage, TOTH just procs and you spam your button with no thinking), and thus it gives a higher return on your DPS if used correct.

Now, with all that being said.. it means nothing when it comes to actual results. To me atleast, no matter how logical something is or how much sims favor something, I won't be convinced.. What convinces me is real in-game numerical evidence. And that sides with fervor. Majority of the top parses of SV have hunters using fervor. Including Rogerbrown (25m) Kennyloggins (25m) and Sanqui (10m). Rogerbrown and kenny being MS BM hunters who recently switched to SV. While Sanqui has been SV for majority of this tier. And he seems to be going Crit>Haste>Mastery for some reason. But in the end though it really boils down to playstyle.

I never heard of sanqui, but looking at him, alot of his ranks are iffy at best. He ranks highly with specs that no one plays on the specific encounter because it hurts the raid, thus lowering the competition to the people who are desperate enough for a high rank to put their raid in danger (BM for sha of fear? Why?), or he just straight out whores like a maniac (Protectors and tsulong are two obvious one's, he's AOE'ing stuff like a maniac while the rest of the raid carries him to greatness).
That being said, a few of his ranks are legit (vizier), but it's very hard to compare 10 and 25 man - his rank 5 on vizier for surv has him at 107K dps, I got rank 5 on 25 man yesterday with 117K. It's quite a huge difference, so can't be alot of competition going on in 10 mans - or atleast, it's not logged (and yes, I am brushing survival off in anticipation of 5.2 - LONG LIVE THE NEW KING SPEC!).
Point being, don't look at the top loggers and just assume they're right. Most of the times, they're whoring while the rest of the raid carries them. Sometimes they'll change their talents around afterwards just to mess with you. I still remember ensidia's hunters always being logged out in hardcast-Aimshot spec during firelands on raggy progress, and I can't believe they actually did that.

I can't legitimize top loggers any more after I watched Kripp's top log video for elegon 25 where he had literally 0 idea what the fight was about and just did things to max his own performance. Must be nice, raiding in the 25 mans.

I can't legitimize top loggers any more after I watched Kripp's top log video for elegon 25 where he had literally 0 idea what the fight was about and just did things to max his own performance. Must be nice, raiding in the 25 mans.

thats what most of the "top" loggers do regardless of class.

Go look at heroic Protectors you can pretty much cut their DPS in half to see what they really did, they are interested in padding not in maxing out DPS on the single target that matters.

Go look at heroic Protectors you can pretty much cut their DPS in half to see what they really did, they are interested in padding not in maxing out DPS on the single target that matters.

Pretty much this. Easy way to check protectors for a surv hunter, go to the boss and look at debuffs. Click on the # icon next to serpent sting. You can see when the debuff was active on the boss. If it's active on Kaolan/Asani from the start on elite, or Regail/Asani from the start, it's someone multishotting to keep the buff running, gaining an extra ~20-25k dps due to being "dumb". Hunter in my guild, Kayman, forgot to switch from barrage to glaive toss last reset for protectors (sha was last thing we killed week before, first fight was protectors that reset, and we 1 shot it so he couldn't change). His barrage did about 3M dmg more than my glaive toss, because it's a whore-ability.

So, essentially, the only bosses where you can "believe" a hunter's DPS (where you can't artificially bump it up through gimmicks) are:
-Feng (assuming all high end guilds let all adds through now anyway).
-Spirit Kings.
-Vizier.
-Bladelord.
-Shekzeer (best way is the "whore"-way of keeping stings on all windblades anyway).
-Lei Shi (this boss is however more dependant on RNG with hide's, and your stack-carriers efficiency).
-Sha of Fear (If logged by the hunter him/herself, as platforms can mess up with uptimes).

The rest of the fights this tier has gimmicks that benefit "bad play", such as tunneling elegon over sparks, sitting on Garalon's legs over someone who can do damage to two targets for a dps boost like DK's/warrs/rogues, and all sorts of other stuff I trust people are aware of.

No it is not! Being focus capped is is not a DPS loss if you are doing your highest dps ability.

I dont agree.
Your overall focus flow in the course of a fight will be the determining factor of your steady/arcane ratio.
If you use procs while focus capped, your gaining less passive focus.
If your using procs while NOT focus capped you are gaining full passive focus.
That passive focus gain is going to give you more overall focus, witch is return will increase your overall arcane usage.
Also getting procs while not focus capped(especially at lower focus)increases the general usefulness of the ability, allowing you to have an easier rotation, and giving you a better chance to not make mistakes.

The passive focus regen is quite significant in the overall picture, so to not consider it is a bad thing.

Plus, people have posted the top SV logs on single target, and many of them WERE using Fervor over DB, and very few ToTH.

Not attempting to argue or anything, but this is why logs shouldn't be taken at face value. Ghostcrawler said something similar before that people will believe Spell A is better than Spell B / C (Same goes for spec/rotation/whichever) if more people use it and rank. For all we know DB or TotH could be a lot better than Fervor if used correctly and such.

The problem with talents like these is that there are a lot of variables to consider and it's hard to say what is right. Each one brings about a different style of rotation that each person feels comfortable and can excel at better than the other. Sims can only tell us so much and use a fix style depending on each scenario. For instance using all 3 charges as they come up and focus capping a lot or not.

Always said while computers may be smart they can't take into considerations the way the human brain works and how it reacts.

Not attempting to argue or anything, but this is why logs shouldn't be taken at face value. Ghostcrawler said something similar before that people will believe Spell A is better than Spell B / C (Same goes for spec/rotation/whichever) if more people use it and rank. For all we know DB or TotH could be a lot better than Fervor if used correctly and such.

The problem with talents like these is that there are a lot of variables to consider and it's hard to say what is right. Each one brings about a different style of rotation that each person feels comfortable and can excel at better than the other. Sims can only tell us so much and use a fix style depending on each scenario. For instance using all 3 charges as they come up and focus capping a lot or not.

Always said while computers may be smart they can't take into considerations the way the human brain works and how it reacts.

If fervor is giving the same focus if not more to you and your pet and it's on demand and not hindered by RNG, I don't think this would be the time to bring that up.

It only showed better on Simulationcraft, which has been notoriously known to be a steaming pile of garbage for hunters.

Oh I agree.. I actually know the hunter that helps with the simcraft codes and he himself admits that it is not all that reliable.. sometimes it is, when he puts in the effort, sometimes it's not..

The relic though does get better with gear.. the more crit you have the more reliable it becomes and it's just hard to ignore passive agi + agi proc. So maybe what Devai means is that it inches ahead at BiS gear, which is what simcraft uses.

The main issue here isn't exactly overcapping focus, but rather, that with a 30% chance to proc from any given attack, if triggered at high focus, the chances of overwriting TOTH procs becomes VERY likely.
This is not in itself an issue, because as long as you're always firing the highest-damaging shot on cooldown, you're not losing dps (no matter how much focus you lose out on). Worst case scenario, you have to recast serpent sting, but TOTH can proc at "bad" times, fervor is 100% in your control. It is however an issue when it doesn't proc when you "need" it.

I'm sorry but I just don't understand what's a 'bad' time to gain free arcane shots ? I don't get your logic at all.. you're contradicting yourself.. You say it's not an issue if you proc it at high focus since as long as you're following the proper shot priority and using the highest dmg ability it's fine.. which it is.. Then you say that it's a negative to have it proc at high focus and then get overwritten with another proc ? What are you losing ? They're still free arcane shots..

And secondly, at high focus, if procc'd, you'd use any of the other abilities that are off cd.. GT BA ES.. But if all of them are on cd, and you proc ToTH.. you simply spam AS. How would the proc get overwritten in that case in the first place ? ToTH only procs from shots that 'cost' focus. It doesn't proc from the 'free' arcane shots of the proc itself. So spam AS, then follow the priority again.. If it procs again, hurray for you.. If you're at max focus and you're spamming AS after AS and end up having SrS about to fall off, just pop a 20 focus multi-shot.. Problem solved.

This is not true. Whether you are reactive or non-reactive, fervor still provides a bigger DPS boost.
Here's a log with me and another Surv hunter on garalon:http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=9351&e=9678
He's using TOTH, I'm using fervor. I missed one application as I start with the pheromones and thus focus more on positioning at the start so the rest of our raid can get to dps properly, instead of blowing all CD's and topping the deeps. With 10 applications of Fervor, I'd get 1K focus. It can also be argued I misssed another as I only got to use one readiness in this fight (5 min 26 sec kill), as my readiness was not used till 30 seconds in (after I'd given off my pheromones).
So 1100 focus.
Kayman gained 19 thrill of the hunts, alot of them overlapping, giving him 1140 focus without any stacks wasted if all used. So as you can see, the amount of focus gained from both skills are laughably close. The main difference here is the fact that your PET gains 100 energy per fervor, too, which leads to far more specials, and more DPS. You won't get more out of TOTH with "good" rng than you will with fervor, fervor is simply a more skill-based talent (have to use it on CD and bleed your focus before using it in order to take full advantage, TOTH just procs and you spam your button with no thinking), and thus it gives a higher return on your DPS if used correct.

Since it is an rng based talent, your other hunter could have possibly gotten more procs.. In which case it would have been much more benefitial.. That is what I mean by good rng.. Whereas you will always get the exact same amount of fervor use.. Like I said earlier, your damage is the most significant portion of your dps as SV.. pet dmg, while still being raw dmg and a dps boost, is less significant to your own. And when did something being 'easier' make it worse ? How are the two related ? For an spriest for example, people take halo cuz it's easier. Divine star (i believe) is the targeted talent which shoots a star directly infront of you.. i.e. a 'skill' shot. And even though it does quite a bit of damage, people don't take it. So why all the negativity around ToTH cuz it's 'easier' ? I don't get that logic..

And if you posted the logs just for the focus gain then it's fine.. the end dps is irrelevant.. I can't assume you both are equally skilled and have same gear and have the same conditions..

As far as sanqui goes, I have been following his progress for a while now.. And he consistently ranks whether it be progression or farm.. And I really don't care if he pads on some fights.. if you think anyone with a #1 rank doesn't pad you're delusional. That's just how you rank.. And it's farm, so what if he goes bm for sha.. he could even go MM.. it's farm.. But all that doesn't discredit his ranks on vizier and blade lord and feng and other fights..

And in fact, it is much easier to pad in a 25m than in a 10m.. You can be fed constant tricks in a 25m, have all the best available buffs/debuffs.. can bring any pet you want (I'm stuck bringing a sporebat to windlord so I can't 'pad' as BM). I remember in DS where mages used to get everyone in the raid with the DW haste staff which gave haste to nearby players, to stack close to them.. the more the merrier.. again, possible in a 25m. So obviously a 10k dps difference isn't huge.. There is def solid competition in a 10m.. Granted, most of the 'celebrity' top hunters or 'famous' ones if you will, are all in 25 mans.. But there are still plenty of unknown yet solid players in 10mans..

And yea i'm not just looking at the top hunters and see what they are using.. I am not one to pick one source of information and deem it sufficient.. But their opinions definitely have weight.

I think you are missing the point. The other hunter got lower than 1140 focus because some of his ToTH procs overlapped and Draco got 1100 on demand focus to him AND his pet. They really are the same except your pet gets much more focus throughout the fight.

Draco (and presumably his fellow hunter) are both 16/16H, I imagine their skill is near equal. As long as their uptimes are similar, gear doesn't matter in terms of how many times TOTH procs and when it overwrites itself, and the general RNG of the proc.

I don't know either of them personally so i can't say.. i'll let draco chime in on that.. but if you really think all players in a 25m guild are equally skilled then you're mistaken.. Regardless, even if they were, one log means nothing.. Here i'll pick a random one.. vizier.. kayman had 30 procs.. (whether he used them all or not it's another story) so 1800 focus.. draco used 13 fervors.. 1300 focus.. there. toth wins.
Blade lord.. Kayman 22 procs.. 1320 focus.. draco, 10 fervors.. 1000 focus.. End dps: Kayman - 99.5k dps, 36.1mil dmg.. draco - 92.4k, 33.5mil dmg.. toth wins again.

1 log =/= definitive proof. My point was, you can only ever use a set amount of fervors in a fight. Whereas with 'good' rng, you could gain a lot more toth procs. And on avg they are both roughly equal anyways.. The one scenario where I can see fervor clearly being better is if it lines up with trinket procs every time.. which at 30 secs it doesn't.. unless you delay.

---------- Post added 2013-02-22 at 01:34 PM ----------

oh and when I meant gear, I meant the end dps of each of them.. The other conditions are directly proportional to the talents.. Although technically, more gear = more haste.. faster cobras.. more focus.. more usage of focus costing abilities.. more toth procs.. lol

I don't know either of them personally so i can't say.. i'll let draco chime in on that.. but if you really think all players in a 25m guild are equally skilled then you're mistaken.. Regardless, even if they were, one log means nothing.. Here i'll pick a random one.. vizier.. kayman had 30 procs.. (whether he used them all or not it's another story) so 1800 focus.. draco used 13 fervors.. 1300 focus.. there. toth wins.

1 log =/= definitive proof. My point was, you can only ever use a set amount of fervors in a fight. Whereas with 'good' rng, you could gain a lot more toth procs. And on avg they are both roughly equal anyways.. The one scenario where I can see fervor clearly being better is if it lines up with trinket procs every time.. which at 30 secs it doesn't.. unless you delay.

---------- Post added 2013-02-22 at 01:34 PM ----------

oh and when I meant gear, I meant the end dps of each of them.. The other conditions are directly proportional to the talents.. Although technically, more gear = more haste.. faster cobras.. more focus.. more usage of focus costing abilities.. more toth procs.. lol

It just might be on a per fight basis then. Looking at some other logs it's putting ToTH ahead and others Fervor.

You really don't know much about the class...
TotH sims about 1.8k DPS less than Fervor, please read the thread before you come here arguing bullshit.

Let me tell you something about sims (beside they assume u play like a perfect machine witch is never the case)...i trust only FD and to the certain degree (i trust it for stats weight and witch items is better upgrade for example).
U have trinket that procs every 1 min 8000 agl for 10 sec ...sims average that so its like you have 1333 agl up all the time ...its wrong U can do insane dps for that 10 sec when u have 8000 agl (add crit rng here and dps can vary so much)
Anyway i have some 465 days played on my hunter and i have no clue what i am talking about ...u guys have sims and shits ,cant argue with you why some talent might be better or not for Surv.

p.s. The way i play surv is this ...unless both BA and explosive shots coming of CD at the same time i NEVER save focus because i use ToTH talent.If i have more then 30-40 focus i bleed it out with "not free"Arcane shots even if i have 2 sec left for next explosive shot).
I try to stay as low focus as possible and to be honest i got focus capped ...one may be 2 times per boss fight (talking about 100 focus + LnL proc and the same time) and even then i ll be focus capped for no more then 2-3 sec. TohT procs a lot sometimes it procs so much that i do 1-2 cobra shots for freaking 30 sec(i dont even use CS cuz its ~1.7 cast vs 20 focus instant MS for a full duration)
Do u have any idea how great ToTH can be on a single target fight from your own experience not with a good rng ...just like that a normal rng. ToHT allows me more often then not to do a max dps rotation for a good amount of time(and thats what surv is all about ....a very stable dps and insane aoe) . Keep your on demand focus !! i am taking ToHT and so far i am more then happy with it(if i play flawless and the fight is long i do same dps as BM hunter if not lil more cuz we all know how much space for errors BM rotations has)
O_o and pls dont bring the subject about how big dps gain Fervor is for a non BM pets OK? Its something for sure ...but its not something you should worry about(pets have to move around doing nothing for few sec ...getting focus bar filled etc....dont tell me u ll keep track of all these shits just to max the benefits pet is getting from farvor cuz i ll LoL IRL ;D !

It just might be on a per fight basis then. Looking at some other logs it's putting ToTH ahead and others Fervor.

True.. that is possible.. but i'm still leaning towards my initial point of good rng.. on garalon though i can def see one senario in which fervor would be the better choice.. where you could possibly line it up/save it for a leg spawn and burst it up..

I modeled my toon's dps on FD and oddly, ToTH was a small DPS loss (about 300dps) but Fervor was almost a 1k dps gain (everything modeled against my SV spec). I've been running DB mostly out of inertia, but I might try Fervor in this week's raid and see if I like it.

Oh I agree.. I actually know the hunter that helps with the simcraft codes and he himself admits that it is not all that reliable.. sometimes it is, when he puts in the effort, sometimes it's not..

The relic though does get better with gear.. the more crit you have the more reliable it becomes and it's just hard to ignore passive agi + agi proc. So maybe what Devai means is that it inches ahead at BiS gear, which is what simcraft uses.

I'm BiS, I have the best gear in the world for hunter right now ( http://www.wowprogress.com/gearscore/ rank 7 overall) - the bottle above relic sims:
Beastmastery: +768 dps.
Survival: +24.3 dps.
It might get JUST better for surv in next tier, but it's so far behind for BM it's laughable. Just saying <.<. I can understand why Devai has to stick with it after upgrading it (the benefit of upgrading the bottle is lower than the benefit he would get from upgrading ANY other item twice), and the options are so close that it might be down to preference - but bottle is the "slightly" better, and more reliable option, even in "BiS" gear (and no - simcraft is NOT using BiS gear. Didn't I already point that out :S?).

I'm sorry but I just don't understand what's a 'bad' time to gain free arcane shots ? I don't get your logic at all.. you're contradicting yourself.. You say it's not an issue if you proc it at high focus since as long as you're following the proper shot priority and using the highest dmg ability it's fine.. which it is.. Then you say that it's a negative to have it proc at high focus and then get overwritten with another proc ? What are you losing ? They're still free arcane shots..

And secondly, at high focus, if procc'd, you'd use any of the other abilities that are off cd.. GT BA ES.. But if all of them are on cd, and you proc ToTH.. you simply spam AS. How would the proc get overwritten in that case in the first place ? ToTH only procs from shots that 'cost' focus. It doesn't proc from the 'free' arcane shots of the proc itself. So spam AS, then follow the priority again.. If it procs again, hurray for you.. If you're at max focus and you're spamming AS after AS and end up having SrS about to fall off, just pop a 20 focus multi-shot.. Problem solved.

Okay, let's try this then, been a long time since I've done napkin math, but let's do it:

Over a 60 second period, fervor restores 200 focus to you, and 200 to your pet (this is the worst scenario for fervor btw, as it goes 0->10 fervor, 30->40 fervor, and ends at 60, right when fervor comes off cooldown).
In that 60 second period, you get to cast:
10 Explosive shots.
2 Black arrows.
4 Glaive tosses.
And ties up 16 seconds of our 60 second timespan.
Outside of procs (let's just assume we don't proc LnL, for simplicity's sake - it'll benefit TOTH anyway).
We get a passive 5 focus per second, so 300 focus. Our shots cost 250+70+60=380 focus.
TOTH procs 3 times out of 10 focus-costing shots. Thus out of 16 shots, we will have 4.8 Procs, rounded up to 5, giving us 15 free arcane shots, or 300 focus saved. This is another 15 seconds out of our 60 second timespan, and gives us 29 seconds left for cobra's.
Each cobra restores 15 focus, each arcane shot spends 20. Each cobra shot has a ~1.7 sec cast time. 29 sec minus 17 seconds gives us 150 focus and 12 seconds left. 7 of those 12 are spent on arcane shots, proc'ing another TOTH, taking out 3 seconds more.
Not alot we can do about the last 2 seconds, but this would be the ABSOLUTE best case scenario for TOTH over a 1 minute period. Using:
10 ES.
2 BA.
4 Glaive.
10 CS.
7 AS (non proc).
18 AS (Proc).
That's 18*20=360 focus in the absolute best case scenario, versus 200 for Fervor's WORST. Add 10 seconds more (which would hold 1 more TOTH proc, as the previous example averages one every 10 seconds), and you get 300 vs 420.

Now, this is a "perfect" scenario, as I've said multiple times. You now have to remember that:
We tend to fire off our "focus-cost" shots in rapid succession, building up our focus then bleeding it dry - thus increasing the chance that you'll overwrite your previous TOTH buff, or risk delaying an ES, BA or Glaive which has a much higher priority than arcane shot.
Each time Lock and Load procs, you remove 2 seconds from your 1 minute window as the shots do not cost focus and can thus not proc TOTH, along with 1/3 of an arcane shot (as the extra ES costs 25 instead of 20 focus from an AS - after 3 procs, you'd have to cast another cobra shot instead of an arcane shot to be able to fire the arcane).

I hope this clears it up - basicly, the "Best case scenario" is so far fetched that it's not even something we should consider, and the average focus gotten from TOTH is very close to fervors, but with none of the focus from your pet.

Since it is an rng based talent, your other hunter could have possibly gotten more procs.. In which case it would have been much more benefitial.. That is what I mean by good rng.. Whereas you will always get the exact same amount of fervor use.. Like I said earlier, your damage is the most significant portion of your dps as SV.. pet dmg, while still being raw dmg and a dps boost, is less significant to your own. And when did something being 'easier' make it worse ? How are the two related ? For an spriest for example, people take halo cuz it's easier. Divine star (i believe) is the targeted talent which shoots a star directly infront of you.. i.e. a 'skill' shot. And even though it does quite a bit of damage, people don't take it. So why all the negativity around ToTH cuz it's 'easier' ? I don't get that logic..

I already explained RNG on TOTH above, so refer to that.
As for "easier" being worse, that's not what I said, but understand this:
Making your skill cap higher by having to click more buttons *usually* gives you a gain in dps. If not, no one would *ever* use it. If they have to add another button to your cycle, it has to provide more benefit than a passive proc.

And if you posted the logs just for the focus gain then it's fine.. the end dps is irrelevant.. I can't assume you both are equally skilled and have same gear and have the same conditions..

Of course I only posted it for focus. Did I ever mention my DPS vs his DPS <.<?
But just to end the whole thing, Kayman is atleast as skilled, if not more so than me. For this tier, he's been doing far better than I have, because of my new found "raid leader" role, since our previous went off to uni. So you can easily asssume that he's a top-hunter, don't worry about that. Go look at his logs if you want proof.

As far as sanqui goes, I have been following his progress for a while now.. And he consistently ranks whether it be progression or farm.. And I really don't care if he pads on some fights.. if you think anyone with a #1 rank doesn't pad you're delusional. That's just how you rank.. And it's farm, so what if he goes bm for sha.. he could even go MM.. it's farm.. But all that doesn't discredit his ranks on vizier and blade lord and feng and other fights..

And in fact, it is much easier to pad in a 25m than in a 10m.. You can be fed constant tricks in a 25m, have all the best available buffs/debuffs.. can bring any pet you want (I'm stuck bringing a sporebat to windlord so I can't 'pad' as BM). I remember in DS where mages used to get everyone in the raid with the DW haste staff which gave haste to nearby players, to stack close to them.. the more the merrier.. again, possible in a 25m. So obviously a 10k dps difference isn't huge.. There is def solid competition in a 10m.. Granted, most of the 'celebrity' top hunters or 'famous' ones if you will, are all in 25 mans.. But there are still plenty of unknown yet solid players in 10mans..

Every "unknown" guild consistently ranks during progress, because top end guilds keep their logs hidden from the public as to not disclose tactics to competition.
I am well aware that everyone with a top rank usually has been set up by their guild and whored like bastards, which is a shame really, but that's my point - don't look at a high-end hunter and go "well, he got rank 1->100 on [Boss X]!" and assume he's good. You have to read the log to see if he's actually worth looking up to, or if he's just been set up by his guild. I did say he did well on vizier and blade lord if I recall, though, no doubt about it. He could have done even better with correct priorities.

And not to get too much into the whole 10v25 debate, go look up his Vizier rank 5, and my Vizier rank 5. There's a 10K difference. Tell me how many tricks *I* got, and how many tricks *HE* got.
Also, here's a link to his raid comp: http://raidcomp.mmo-champion.com/?c=...00000000000000
How many buffs is he missing? None, as he used a wind serpent.
Realisticly, there's zero reason that there should be a 9% difference in our damage, with the switch between 10 and 25 man. Care to explain why it is, apart from sloppy play overall from the 10 man enviroment? Remember, I'm not even comparing my damage to his - he's a good hunter and I wouldn't mind having him in my guild at all, even though he could optimise to eek out slightly more dps - I'm comparing the RANKINGS.

And yea i'm not just looking at the top hunters and see what they are using.. I am not one to pick one source of information and deem it sufficient.. But their opinions definitely have weight.

Sure, as long as we're clear on that =P. I'd be quite the hypocrite to claim that I know everything, and everyone else's meanings are void. I recall being fiercely in favor of TOTH during the start of the tier, over fervor, untill another top end hunter sat me down and explained to me why fervor would be more beneficial, and got me to try it.

Originally Posted by Saoron

Again, that log means nothing.. player skill, conditions, role in the fight, gear all would have to be equal for those numbers to have any significance..

As said above, Kayman is as good, if not better than me.

Originally Posted by Saoron

I don't know either of them personally so i can't say.. i'll let draco chime in on that.. but if you really think all players in a 25m guild are equally skilled then you're mistaken.. Regardless, even if they were, one log means nothing.. Here i'll pick a random one.. vizier.. kayman had 30 procs.. (whether he used them all or not it's another story) so 1800 focus.. draco used 13 fervors.. 1300 focus.. there. toth wins.
Blade lord.. Kayman 22 procs.. 1320 focus.. draco, 10 fervors.. 1000 focus.. End dps: Kayman - 99.5k dps, 36.1mil dmg.. draco - 92.4k, 33.5mil dmg.. toth wins again.

You said yourself DPS doesn't matter, so I'm not sure why you take the dps from bladelord (where I "lost"), and not from Vizier (where I "won") - trying to discredit me because I got beat =P?

Anyway, to see where his TOTH overlaps, go to:http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=8578&e=8940 click buffs gained, and click on the # next to "thrill of the hunt". He proc'd 22 times, but only 18 actual procs register. Thats means 4 of the TOTH's overlapped, taking out 240 potential focus (1060 vs 1000).
And that's not considering the damage from our pets, where mine did on average 2K dps more than his on bladelord.

1 log =/= definitive proof. My point was, you can only ever use a set amount of fervors in a fight. Whereas with 'good' rng, you could gain a lot more toth procs. And on avg they are both roughly equal anyways.. The one scenario where I can see fervor clearly being better is if it lines up with trinket procs every time.. which at 30 secs it doesn't.. unless you delay.

And with bad RNG you could get even less. No matter how good a player you are, you won't be able to make it proc on demand, or even be sure it gives you more focus than fervor would.

---------- Post added 2013-02-22 at 01:34 PM ----------

oh and when I meant gear, I meant the end dps of each of them.. The other conditions are directly proportional to the talents.. Although technically, more gear = more haste.. faster cobras.. more focus.. more usage of focus costing abilities.. more toth procs.. lol

We have the same gear except he's got 509 shoulders from Protectors, I have 516. Blame the 7 item levels if you must <.<.

Lollipop, your posts are hard to read (paragraphs, commas and such are your friends ), but by the gist of it, it seems like you're sticking to TOTH because you like it better. So be it, that just means you aren't as "serious" as some of us are. As for your "DPS gain for non BM pet is something but not alot", let's take http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=7718&e=8173 as we have close to 100% uptime with no dumb modifiers on that fight.
My Manglermaster: 16464 DPS.
Kayman's Blackwing: 11964 DPS.
Thats exactly 4.5K dps more for my pet, or a 37% increase in my pet's damage. And noticeably, about 4% OVERALL dps for me.
You're really, REALLY undervalueing how hard your pet hits .

Let me tell you something about sims (beside they assume u play like a perfect machine witch is never the case)...i trust only FD and to the certain degree (i trust it for stats weight and witch items is better upgrade for example).
U have trinket that procs every 1 min 8000 agl for 10 sec ...sims average that so its like you have 1333 agl up all the time ...its wrong U can do insane dps for that 10 sec when u have 8000 agl (add crit rng here and dps can vary so much)Anyway i have some 465 days played on my hunter and i have no clue what i am talking about ...u guys have sims and shits ,cant argue with you why some talent might be better or not for Surv.

p.s. The way i play surv is this ...unless both BA and explosive shots coming of CD at the same time i NEVER save focus because i use ToTH talent.If i have more then 30-40 focus i bleed it out with "not free"Arcane shots even if i have 2 sec left for next explosive shot).
I try to stay as low focus as possible and to be honest i got focus capped ...one may be 2 times per boss fight (talking about 100 focus + LnL proc and the same time) and even then i ll be focus capped for no more then 2-3 sec. TohT procs a lot sometimes it procs so much that i do 1-2 cobra shots for freaking 30 sec(i dont even use CS cuz its ~1.7 cast vs 20 focus instant MS for a full duration)
Do u have any idea how great ToTH can be on a single target fight from your own experience not with a good rng ...just like that a normal rng. ToHT allows me more often then not to do a max dps rotation for a good amount of time(and thats what surv is all about ....a very stable dps and insane aoe) . Keep your on demand focus !! i am taking ToHT and so far i am more then happy with it(if i play flawless and the fight is long i do same dps as BM hunter if not lil more cuz we all know how much space for errors BM rotations has)
O_o and pls dont bring the subject about how big dps gain Fervor is for a non BM pets OK? Its something for sure ...but its not something you should worry about(pets have to move around doing nothing for few sec ...getting focus bar filled etc....dont tell me u ll keep track of all these shits just to max the benefits pet is getting from farvor cuz i ll LoL IRL ;D !

Having more playtime doesn't mean anything, that's just the same as saying "I'm older than you, that's why I'm better". Just because you might have played Vanilla doesn't mean you should argue that you are a good raider, Vanilla raids were easier than LFR mechanics-wise, almost every fight was tank and spank with the occasional debuff that had to be dispelled.

Also a BM hunter with same skill level as you will ALWAYS outdps you if they have DB and you have TotH, same goes with Fervor for SV. Top logs don't mean anything because of RNG either. FD is the most accurate Hunter sim currently, it only has issues with Haste, which neither Fervor or TotH scale with.

Not sure what you mean with non-BM pets, I always use DB as BM because it's the only one that compliments the spec with Mastery adding value and also you don't need to use Cobra shot much, if at all during BW sometimes. If the fight has too much movement for DB, I will be SV anyway as BM would suffer from from the movement already.

For fight such as Protectors Heroic, where adds spawn when bosses are active, you'd leave pet on boss, thus you won't have any issues with Fervor pet focus being wasted, same for Will Heroic, I put pet on boss and I have specced Lynx Rush because BS is far too short CD with all the AoEing/Moving and aMoC is just going to sit on CD a lot if I have to target boss and have 60 focus saved.

Pet movement can be countered really easily most of the time(either by having BS or leaving pet on something), also pets still have the passive that their Claw/Smack/Bite consume far more Focus and do more damage when they are close to max focus, so 1 ability would bring the Focus bar of a pet back to low(~30)

If fervor is giving the same focus if not more to you and your pet and it's on demand and not hindered by RNG, I don't think this would be the time to bring that up.

Just because Fervor isn't hindered by RNG still doesn't make my point invalid. You still have a RNG talent VS non RNG talent with one being potentially more than the other under any given scenario.

Fervor barely affects your pet, which is why I don't understand why people bring it up. The only pet ability (non tank specced) that costs focus is Basic Ability and a version of Dash. The only benefit it would get from it at that point is your Basic Attack has a chance to do more damage (at least the first one).

Fervor is also a cooldown that is best used on cooldown to receive maximum benefit while Thrill of the Hunt is more RNG based and can provide more dps/focus. For every Fervor use then Thrill of the Hunt would have to proc two times in order to exceed Fervor's damage). As we accumulate more base haste on gear it'll give us more procs overall since it will proc anything but free Explosive Shots granted by Lock N Load. Haste will become more of a factor as we get more as it'll influence the procs along with the possibility of later on if we see different stat priorities / plateaus being considered depending on the talent.

Basically this whole argument comes down to (and yes sims aren't going to prove any difference as it's choice) that would you rather have a guaranteed amount of focus along with it being there when you decide? Or would you rather take your chances and see if you can get more back with a RNG talent (some would rather play the lottery).

Just because Fervor isn't hindered by RNG still doesn't make my point invalid. You still have a RNG talent VS non RNG talent with one being potentially more than the other under any given scenario.

Fervor barely affects your pet, which is why I don't understand why people bring it up. The only pet ability (non tank specced) that costs focus is Basic Ability and a version of Dash. The only benefit it would get from it at that point is your Basic Attack has a chance to do more damage (at least the first one).

Fervor is also a cooldown that is best used on cooldown to receive maximum benefit while Thrill of the Hunt is more RNG based and can provide more dps/focus. For every Fervor use then Thrill of the Hunt would have to proc two times in order to exceed Fervor's damage). As we accumulate more base haste on gear it'll give us more procs overall since it will proc anything but free Explosive Shots granted by Lock N Load. Haste will become more of a factor as we get more as it'll influence the procs along with the possibility of later on if we see different stat priorities / plateaus being considered depending on the talent.

Basically this whole argument comes down to (and yes sims aren't going to prove any difference as it's choice) that would you rather have a guaranteed amount of focus along with it being there when you decide? Or would you rather take your chances and see if you can get more back with a RNG talent (some would rather play the lottery).

Looking at last weeks bladelord between me and kayman, his pet did 5 melee attacks more than mine, his did 60 specials and mine did 69. So that's one every 6 seconds for him, and one every 5.2 seconds for me. Also, his pet's bite-ability has a damage spread of 15k->29.5k, mine has a dmg spread of 20.7-42.5K, while melee is even - so I guess that "wild hunt" or whatever the pets passive is named now has a SIGNIFICANT impact on the pets damage. Don't discount it as "nothing", it's a BIG factor overall between the two talents, like it or not.